


stargaze

by fnowae



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Humor, Light Angst, M/M, astronomy au, i can't tag this one thing cause spoilers but JUST READ IT, inspired by an astronomy talk by someone named Kevin, thanks Kevin, this is. wild, very light
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-12-13 10:30:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11757960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fnowae/pseuds/fnowae
Summary: "Pluto. Why isn't it on there?" the voice comes again. Joe still can't see who in the crowd is asking."It's not a planet," Joe responds breezily. He gets that question a lot, and his solution is usually to make a joke out of it and make fun of whoever asked. He can't tell who the voice is coming from, but he'll still do it. "I get that some of you people are...Pluto fanboys, or something, but get over it. It's just a Kuiper Belt Object."





	stargaze

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to Kevin what's-his-face, who gave a hilarious astronomy talk at the desert museum outside Tucson. This is all your fault, Kevin. All your fault. (In fact, the talk at the beginning is HEAVILY based off Kevin's actual talk that I went to. The only thing Joe says that Kevin didn't actually say is the gay bar joke. The rest is stolen. Sorry Kevin.)
> 
> Anyway, have fun with this! Whoop!

Joe lets out a breath of relief when the museum worker gives him the cue that means "start whenever you're ready". He always gets tense right before talks, but as soon as they start everything melts away and he can just babble on about planets and stars and black holes like a fanboy, but the difference is he's an astronomer so obsessing over these things like a twelve year old girl over a boy band makes him sound professional. 

"Is this thing on?" he asks, grinning and strolling in front of the screen and tapping his mic. It is, he knows it is, but he always starts with this shell of a joke. He has some people who are devout fans - for some reason - and they love when he starts with the mic joke. Sure enough, it gets one or two loud cheers from the small crowd seated in the theater. 

"Ha ha, alright," he says, beaming back at the crowd. He recognizes a couple faces - a couple people who like to follow his talks, a colleague who once worked with him on a project years ago, a girl who was at the talk last night and told him wanted to come back tonight to make sure she got everything - but mostly they're strangers. "So, for those of you who don't know me, or aren't maniacs who show up to two talks in a row, I'm Joe Trohman." He switches the slide, turning it to one with his name and "astronomer" underneath it. "And, yeah, if you can't read, I'm an astronomer! If that's not what you came to this talk for, feel free to get up and leave."

He laughs when one person actually sheepishly stands up and exits out back. "Alright, now we've only got you guys who want to be here! ...I hope. Let's start."

He switches the slide again - a map of the U.S. with a star on Tucson, where he's standing tonight. "A little more about me, first. I'm not from Tucson...a ways across the country actually...but I'm here because of astronomy!" He grins out at the crowd, and he gets a couple laughs from that. If the crowd laughs that easily, he thinks this talk should be a piece of cake. He continues, "Anyway, I came here because so many astronomers are here! It's kind of like why I would go to a gay bar...I want to meet other gay people, and most people there are probably gay, but some aren't, even though I'm certain everyone secretly is. And that's how astronomers in Tucson work!" This one gets a huge laugh. He loves making that joke - it's always a favorite of anyone listening to his talks. 

"Now, let's look at the planets." Slide switch - artist's rendering of the solar system's planets. "This is by no means a scale model, but that would take up way too much space and you probably wouldn't even be able to see the rocky planets at all. So we have this - I know you all probably know the planets already anyway, but here they are - Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. That's going out from the sun. Now-"

"Where's Pluto?"

"Excuse me?" Joe turns to the audience, trying to figure out where the voice had come from, but he can't deduce who it had been. 

"Pluto. Why isn't it on there?" the voice comes again. Joe still can't see who in the crowd is asking. 

"It's not a planet," Joe responds breezily. He gets that question a lot, and his solution is usually to make a joke out of it and make fun of whoever asked. He can't tell who the voice is coming from, but he'll still do it. "I get that some of you people are...Pluto fanboys, or something, but get over it. It's just a Kuiper Belt Object."

"Get over it?" The voice sounds irritated. "Why isn't it a planet?"

"Listen, I don't have time for this." Joe sighs, switching slides again, this time to a chart, and no longer acknowledging any protests from the voice. "So...let's talk about the growth of the universe."

He settles into a groove, thankful for the Pluto guy keeping his mouth shut. He even makes a couple jabs at the guy along the way - "And _obviously_ Pluto should be a planet because it's a tiny bit darker blue than the rest of those dots", "And then we'd be passing the Kuiper Belt...that guy is waving hi to Pluto..." - and he's satisfied with the audience response at the end. He takes questions after the presentation, as he always does, and he fields a couple queries about black holes and universal expansion and other shit like that, and he's happy to say he has the answers to every one. Finally, it seems the audience has all filtered out, and he's left to clean up his stuff, happy with another job well done, when-

"I have a question."

Joe recognizes the voice - it's Pluto guy. He turns towards it to see a huffy looking short guy with his arms crossed over his chest, holding him with a heavy glare. 

"Is it about Pluto?" Joe asks drily, picking up his laptop and closing it. He hopes the fact that he's still cleaning up while Pluto guy tries to talk to him adequately shows his disinterest. 

"Yes." Not like Joe is surprised by that answer. "What do you mean you don't think Pluto is a planet?"

"It's not that I don't think it is," Joe says, turning to Pluto guy with his laptop tucked under one arm, having quickly run out of ways to make himself look too busy for this conversation. "It's just that it's not. We as a planet decided that a while ago. Not my fault some idiots still don't like it."

"A while ago?" Pluto guy pulls a face. "How long ago?"

"2006. Like, eleven years." Joe shrugs, slightly unsure how this guy could be one of the Pluto defendants and not know the year it lost planethood. Also, he doesn't want to have this conversation. He's tired of trying to reason with avid Pluto supporters. If this guy's like the rest of them, he'll just give up within a couple minutes. So Joe holds out for a couple minutes more. 

"Eleven years?" Pluto guy's face turns to a look of disbelief. "Why haven't you fixed it?"

"Because there's nothing to fix. It's just not a planet." Joe sighs. "Listen, I have to go-"

"Why is it not a planet?" Pluto guy's eyes flash dangerously, and Joe starts to consider that maybe this guy is going to fucking murder him for not thinking Pluto is a planet. Jesus, he thinks, these Pluto fuckers are insane. 

"Because it's just a Kuiper Belt Object," Joe answers blandly, so used to reciting this answer to people who bother him about it. "There's a shit ton of other rocks floating around out there the same size, or bigger - it'd be too much to have to count all of them as planets."

"Why don't you just make them all planets, though?" Pluto guy asks, eyes narrowing and mouth tightening in distaste. 

Joe shakes his head, exasperated. "Listen, Pluto guy. I mean, uh-"

"Patrick."

"Okay, Patrick. We can't just make every single rock in this solar system into a planet. I get that you like Pluto. That's great. But it's not a fucking planet. Leave me alone."

With that, he strolls straight past Patrick, purposefully bumping into him as he does. He feels kind of bad, but also, Patrick's kind of a bitch, so he thinks that justifies it. 

He walks out of the theater, out of the museum, gets into his car, and drives home. 

///

"Well, I'm just saying, Pluto deserves planet status."

Joe fucking shoots off the couch, whipping his head around to find Patrick glaring coolly at him, arms still crossed. 

"Dude!" Joe gapes at him, eyes wide as they can go. "This is my house!"

"I know. I followed you here," Patrick says, like this is completely fucking normal and not at all stalkerish. 

"Jesus!" Joe squeezes his eyes shut, certain that he's hallucinating, and if he opens his eyes again Patrick will be gone and he can go back to watching the nature documentary he'd had on. 

No such luck. 

"I really think you should consider making Pluto a planet again," Patrick says, and it sounds very much like a threat. Joe is starting to feel like Patrick really _will_ kill him if he doesn't. 

"Okay, listen," he says, slowly stepping back from Patrick, slightly fearing for his life. "Even if I wanted to - which I don't - I couldn't make Pluto a planet again. It's not up to me. I'm just a lowly astronomer. I don't even work for NASA. As astronomers go, I'm basically the office secretary."

Patrick just blinks at him, considering this, then says, "But you could convince someone higher up than you?"

"No!" Joe stares at him, slack-jawed. Does this guy really not get it? "I have no connections! I'm not an important person. Go bother, like, the head of NASA, man. I cant help you."

"I don't know how to get to that person," Patrick says calmly, as if he doesn't find any of this conversation weird in the least. "I know how to get to you. Make Pluto a planet."

"You're a fucking creep." Joe shakes his head. "Get out of my house before I call the police."

"Fine." Patrick makes a frustrated noise, then grabs the nearest paper, pulls a pen out of his pocket, and scribbles something down. He thrusts the paper at Joe and says. "Come visit me sometime when you actually want to take this seriously. Call ahead."

Joe starts to argue, to explain to Patrick that he is in no way ever going to want to take this seriously, but Patrick has already whipped around and strutted out the front door. 

Joe looks down to the paper. It's ripped off one of the notepads he'd stolen from a hotel. In messy handwriting written in pale blue ink is an address and a phone number. 

Joe's better judgement tells him to throw it out. 

He doesn't. 

///

"I really think you're stalking me."

"Yes, I am."

Joe groans and shoves another bite of his hot dog into his mouth. "Why, exactly?"

"You said you'd call the police if I didn't get out of your house." Patrick gestures around the park they're sitting in. "So I found you somewhere that wasn't your house. No police."

"I hate you," Joe informs him through a mouthful of hot dog. 

"Okay." Patrick inspects Joe's hot dog curiously. "Can I have one of those?"

Joe gives him a dubious look. "You're stalking me because I can't make Pluto a planet. I'm not buying you a hot dog."

"Please?" Patrick begs, still eyeing Joe's hot dog. 

Joe sighs. "You weird me the fuck out, man."

He buys Patrick the hot dog anyway, and it's kind of funny how Patrick gets so excited about it - kind of. 

///

" _Dude_. We're fifty miles out of town and I don't remember seeing a car following me. How are you here?"

Patrick keeps his eyes trained intently on Joe's campfire. "I followed you."

Joe sighs. "Yeah, yeah. I get that. You seem to be doing that a lot."

Patrick leans forward a bit, watching as Joe roasts a hot dog over the flames. "Ooh, those again! Can I have one? I like those."

"Hot dogs?" Joe laughs. "Yeah, fine. I guess I can cook another."

Patrick beams. "And then make Pluto a planet?"

"Still can't do that," Joe tells him, rolling his eyes. But Patrick's Pluto obsession is slowly becoming more endearing than annoying - a development that concerns Joe less than it should. 

"Work on it," Patrick insists as Joe hands him a hot dog. 

"Yeah, sure." Joe shakes his head, finding himself grinning. "Sure."

Joe offers Patrick a sleeping bag and Patrick accepts. They fall asleep together under the stars. The last thing Joe sees before he loses consciousness is Patrick lazily smiling up at the stars, moonlight glowing off his face. 

When he wakes up the next morning, Patrick is gone, and his sleeping bag is too. 

///

Two days later, Joe finds Patrick's paper in his jacket pocket. The address and number and still scribbled on it, and suddenly Joe has no impulse control. He hops in the car, puts the address into google maps, and drives. 

He finds himself in front of a small apartment building, all old worn bricks and cracked walls. He checks the paper again, finding that Patrick is in apartment 3B - which is on the third floor, the highest one of the tiny building. Joe steps in through the front door, and makes his way up the excessively creaky stairs to the top floor. 

There's four apartments per floor (A, B, C, D), and 3B is right next to the stairs. Joe takes the two steps from the floor entrance to the door, and knocks. 

No reply. 

Joe sighs. Right, right, Patrick had said to call ahead. He's probably out somewhere - he must have a busy schedule, that's why he would need to know ahead of time if Joe was gonna visit. Joe shakes his head. What is he doing, anyway? Visiting the guy who's been stalking him for weeks because he's a fucking Pluto fanatic and Joe's a low level astronomer? Yeah, actually, what the fuck _is_ he doing?

On instinct, Joe reaches forward to try to door before he leaves. He's surprised when the handle turns under his grip and the door moves inwards. 

So apparently Patrick doesn't lock his door. That's...disconcerting, just a little. 

Joe knows he shouldn't intrude, but hey, Patrick has done the exact same thing to him for weeks now, so he thinks he deserves a chance to reciprocate it. 

He steps into the threshold, softly closing the door behind him. He takes a couple steps through the entry hall, calling as he goes, "Hey, Patrick?"

At first he can't figure out where Patrick could be, but he steps into the living room area and - _oh_. 

Patrick is in there, all right. And he's - _well_. 

Joe's obviously looking at Patrick, but _different_. Patrick's eyes have always been blue, but now they're _blue_ \- entirely. There's no iris or pupil or whites - just pale blue that's reminiscent of the writing on the paper still clutched weakly in Joe's hand. Joe thinks Patrick might be paler than usual, so much so that his skin looks paper-white, but it could also be the fact he's fucking _glowing_ , a vague white light pulsing off his skin like the beacon atop a radio tower. And he's gained some sort of weird deep blue markings all over him - lines and dots and patterns decorate his arms and legs and neck and face. Joe would say they're tattoos, but when the fuck would Patrick have gotten tattoos? Joe saw him two days ago and he didn't have this shit - if he'd gotten tattoos since then, they wouldn't be even close to healed yet, especially not when there's this many of them. 

When Patrick notices that Joe is staring at him, he screams, stumbling away and yelling, " _I told you to call ahead!_ "

Joe stares dumbly at Patrick, who continues to slowly back away. He notices that behind Patrick is what looks like some huge blue glowing screen, like a hologram in some sci-fi movie - and Joe suspects that's exactly what it is. It's covered in what look like maps, but not maps of anywhere Joe's ever seen before. 

Patrick stumbles back to the screen, slamming a hand on a small blue button on the table, and the screen seems to collapse into the button. Joe watches in awe as Patrick slowly shifts back to normal - his eyes return to the color Joe is used to, color returns his skin and the odd glow fades, and the sort-of-tattoos disappear as well. Joe is left staring at the Patrick he's used to - but that can't make him forget what he's just seen. 

" _What_ ," he says dumbly, blinking at Patrick, who is hunched against the table and shaking a little. 

"Y - you should have called ahead," Patrick stammers out, voice shaking as much as his body. 

"Your door was unlocked," Joe says weakly, like this is a perfect defense for everything. 

"I don't know how to lock it," Patrick whispers, eyes wide and fearful under Joe's gaze. 

Joe stares for a moment more, and then bursts into laughter, doubling over himself. 

"Joe, I-" Patrick begins nervously. 

"You don't know how to lock it!" Joe bursts out, unable to stop himself. "You don't know how to lock your fucking door! You were in here playing with a - a fucking holographic screen or some shit and _you can't work a lock_!"

"Joe, kindly shut the fuck up," Patrick hisses out, fear gone from his voice and quickly replaced with contempt. 

Joe shuts up, looking back to Patrick as reality crashes back down. "Oh, shit, you - what did I just walk in on?"

Patrick bites his lip, shifting on his feet and going straight back to being nervous. "Listen, just-"

"If you ask me to forget I saw that I will fucking - fucking punch you in the face and run out and never talk to you again," Joe says, crossing his arms tightly. " _What was that_?" Then, before Patrick can answer, something occurs to him, and he can't hold back another quick bout of laughter when everything clicks into place. "Oh my god. _Oh my god_. The reason you're so fucking obsessed with making Pluto a planet, you're - oh my god."

Patrick shifts his gaze away from Joe, embarrassed. "Uh, I - well, I-"

"You're from there, aren't you?" Joe asks, amazed at the fact he's able to ask that without feeling totally insane. Then again, after what he's seen, he feels like his guess is pretty grounded. Either that, or he's just _completely_ off the deep end. Both are viable options. 

"Y - yeah," Patrick stutters, looking down to the floor. "Yeah."

Joe takes a moment to process this, and then says, "Oh, _wow_. You - uh, okay. How the fuck did you end up here?"

Patrick presses his mouth into a thin frown. "Well...I...uh, I ran away?"

"From Pluto," Joe finishes blankly. 

"From Pluto," Patrick agrees. "It...it's kind of shitty. I wouldn't recommend it. I don't know, someone said there was life here, and I thought maybe I could - I don't know. I thought I could run over here and the inhabitants here would be better and it wouldn't be like Pluto all over again. But this place is almost worse! Everyone is an asshole! And I'm not used to how warm it is here - I'm sure this is normal for you, but I'm meant to live in the _cold_." Patrick shakes his head. "I - I've kind of been trying to get back. But I totally wrecked my only means of transportation and no one here seems to have the technology to fix it." He finally looks back to Joe, a look on his face that's somewhat ashamed. "I started spending my time following anything to do with space, because I hoped someone would have the answer somewhere - I was frequenting planetariums, stargazing clubs...astronomy talks."

"So you showed up to mine," Joe guesses. 

Patrick nods weakly. "And you said...you said here you don't even consider my home a planet. And I don't know, I hate it there, but - I got defensive. It's still my home, no matter how shitty a place it is. And hey, badgering you about it was something to do with my time other than mope around about being stuck here." He finished his story with a grimace, looking at Joe expectantly, though Joe isn't quite sure what he's expecting. 

"I - wow," Joe says, staring. He realizes his mouth has dropped open, and he quickly closes it again, feeling bad about looking so shocked. "Wow. I - I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"Of course you didn't," Patrick mumbles, eyes downcast. "It wasn't like I expected anyone to."

Joe is silent for a moment more. He just stands there, thoughtful. When he can't think of anything to say, he just goes for, "I may still just be a low level astronomer, but I could try to help you get back."

Patrick hesitates a fraction of a second, then starts laughing. Joe just stares, confused. What?

"Sorry, sorry," Patrick says, shaking his head as a grin spreads across his face. "I just - I don't know, I don't think I want to go back at all anymore."

"Huh?" Joe frowns. 

Patrick cocks his head to the side just the tiniest bit, his smile now a full on beam. "You're way better than Pluto."

Joe's eyes widen. "Oh, I - shit, you - you're gonna stay here for me?"

"No," Patrick deadpans, "I'm gonna stay here for the hot dogs." He laughs when Joe's face falls. "No, hey, I'm kidding. I'm absolutely gonna stay here for you."

"Oh," Joe says, laughing nervously. "Oh, wow, okay."

He takes a careful step towards Patrick, and he's relieved when Patrick doesn't shy away this time. He suggests slowly, "If you're staying...we could...we could try to make Pluto a planet."

Patrick laughs. "I'd like that. I'd like that a lot."

**Author's Note:**

> Uh...I don't know if y'all can really prompt me in this au, but go ahead if you want, I want to write more for it. 
> 
> So send prompts to my tumblr, vicesandvelociraptors, I guess. I'd appreciate it. I love this one. 
> 
> (Also - comments are appreciated!)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
